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Wednesday, August 14, 2013

NBC: Businesses claim Obamacare forced them to cut employee hours

Employers around the country, from fast-food franchises to colleges,
have told NBC News that they will be cutting workers’ hours below 30 a
week because they can’t afford to offer the health insurance mandated by
the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

“To tell
somebody that you’ve got to decrease their hours because of a law passed
in Washington is very frustrating to me,” said Loren Goodridge, who
owns 21 Subway franchises, including a restaurant in Kennebunk. “I know
the impact I’m having on some of my employees.”

Goodridge said he’s cutting the hours of 50 workers to no more than 29 a
week so he won’t trigger the provision in the new health care law that
requires employers to offer coverage to employees who work 30 hours or
more per week. The provision takes effect in 16 months.

Luke Perfect, who has worked at Goodridge’s Kennebunk Subway for more
than a decade, said it was “horrible” to learn he was among the
employees whose hours would be limited, and that it would be a financial
hardship. “I’m barely scraping by with overtime,” he said.

The
White House dismisses such examples as "anecdotal." Jason Furman,
chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisors, said, “We are
seeing no systematic evidence that the Affordable Care Act is having an
adverse impact on job growth or the number of hours employees are
working. … [S]ince the ACA became law, nearly 90 percent of the gain in
employment has been in full-time positions.”

But the president of an influential union that supports Obamacare said the White House is wrong. (Continues at NBC)